


they have hung my heart with a sunset

by jillyfae



Series: they have hung the sky with arrows [3]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Ficlet Collection, Lightwood Family, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Canon, Romance, shadow world politics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:46:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28089489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jillyfae/pseuds/jillyfae
Summary: For everythingafter... ficlet collection for the High Warlock of Alicante & The Inquisitor of the Clave.
Relationships: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood
Series: they have hung the sky with arrows [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1810009
Comments: 10
Kudos: 55





	they have hung my heart with a sunset

Alicante’s too quiet.

It’s always been quieter, of course, nothing and nowhere compares to New York, which is home for him in a way it never was for his parents.

But now, after everything...

After Valentine and Malachi, after Lilith, after Jonathan... 

Opening the gates to let the rest of the Shadow World isn’t enough to fill all the empty spaces, to hide all the empty houses.

He can hear voices from somewhere further in the Gard, even this early in the morning, when the night shift has mostly gone home, but from outside? Nothing but the wind, and the trees, and the fountain in the courtyard. 

He’s pretty sure he can hear a bird singing, as if he’s out at an estate rather than in the middle of The Clave’s Headquarters... Alicante can’t compare to New York, but it’s still a _city._

_A half-deserted one._

No, not deserted. No one abandoned it, they’re just... all gone.

_Decimated._

One in ten would’ve been better than what they had. 

He’s not sure his people realize that, wonders how they missed it, how they can look at wiped out Institutes, at empty streets and buildings and think they’re _fine._

Or even that they’re anything less than dying. 

They’ll lie to themselves, convince themselves they’re _recovering,_ that there are enough of them left to rebuild, that they’re chosen by the Angels, that they can’t just _fade away_. 

But Alec’s seen the numbers. There aren’t enough _parents,_ not enough children. (Not enough people who live long enough to become the former, dying when they’re thrown into battle when they’re still the latter, especially now, now that there aren’t enough adults left anywhere at all.)

He thinks it’ll take The Clave about ten years to admit it, to stop denying what they see, that the class sizes at the reopened Academy keep growing smaller while the funerals never slow down. The old guard will finally have to face it, will panic and plot once it’s far too late, will be desperate enough to whisper about using the Cup again, to start wondering if Valentine was right, if they need to wipe the Downworld out in one last stand, burn themselves out to save the mundanes, to kill everything and everyone tainted by demons, a final self-righteous conflagration to end it all. 

Ten years, maybe a little less. 

He’s got until then to change things enough that they can’t pull it off.

He hopes it’s enough. 


End file.
